Posted
by
michaelon Saturday July 26, 2003 @02:32PM
from the recycle-your-beer-cans dept.

markjugg writes "The American Bamboo Society has a page describing a working bamboo bike. This is a strong step towards making bicycling more sustainable, expecially in contrast to aluminum, one of the most resource demanding materials that exist."

Before you say that bamboo is weak and easily dismembered, here's a quote from the article:

"But Flavio makes me see things differently: Bamboo is a resource of immense potential. And it is strong too. What makes it possible to build bicycles from it is that it is stronger than steel when strained in the longitudinal direction, 17% to be exact."

While resistence to longitudinal stress is a good thing, many of the strains on the frame of a bike are not longitudinal - there is a lot of lateral flexing as you pedal. Bamboo is prone to splitting and fracturing when under lateral strain. I would really hate to have one of those collapse under me due to lateral stress fractures. All those sharp slivers of bamboo right under my crotch? No thanks...

holy crap! well, I guess I'll have to make sure to tell all my biking buddies to make sure that all strain exerted on their bikes is "in the longitudinal direction," versus the normal strains that are put on bikes (twists, various directions, etc).

And next time I'm hit by an suv while riding a bike, I'll be sure glad the bike shattered into bits instead of staying in one relative piece!

Did the people who did this previous work in MS's "innovation" department???

I think you could make a decent mountain bike, however the problem will come at the joins. Accordign to that photo, the frame is made of lugs that have been glued to bamboo poles. Carbon fibre frames are made in a similar way.
The challenge is to find an adhesive that is able to bond nicely to metal and bamboo. The other problem with bamboo is that you cannot guarantee it's regularity in the same way that you can with an artificial tube... I guess that is where craftsmen come in. Not all bamboo tubes are created equal.
A lugged frame is normally made by braising metal lugs to metal poles with a bit of solder. Lugged frames are known for being tough but really heavy.

bamboo is much more environmentally friendly than metals while being extraordinarily plentiful

This sounds great to me, but man I hope that bamboo doesn't work its way into my garden. Has anybody here ever tried to weed bamboo out of a garden?

My mom planted bamboo once, and then, a few years later in the course of reorganizing her garden, asked me to dig it out. Ugh! That stuff is worse than an Outlook virus! It sends out needle sharpd shooters in all directions. If you see a single stalk poking out of the ground, it might have sent out shooters ten feet all around it. The only way I was able to finally dig it all out was to wait until after a heavy rain and basically just turn the "garden" into a mud soup pulling it out.

Bamboo canes are hollow, right? So just use aluminium rods with bamboo cladding round the outside. You get a strong and stable bike, and still get all the eco-friendly posing opportunities. It's not as if anyone will try to cut the bamboo open to see if you're cheating.

Yeah its an old joke, but if memory serves he did fix it but Gilligan managed to sink it or lose it at sea. If they really wanted to get off the island they should have just shot Gilligan with a bamboo gun.

"Whatcha building there Professor?"

"Err, something that'll get us off the island and you're going to be the first to leave."

Bamboo is also flamable...which leaves out common activities like jumping through flaming hoops, or over a burning tar pit. Being made of wood, I really wouldn't want to ride a bamboo bike while juggling chainsaws. There are lots of arguments against bamboo bikes.

Personally, I would love to see more natural fibers in bikes. Rather than making the whole bike from bamboo, making just a few pieces helps reduce the consumption from the titanium mines.
Sig: Flamable materials are dangerous, which is why I always make sure the products I buy are clearly marked as "inflamable."

Dude (or if you're French, doude), you can't ride a bicycle while juggling chainsaws anyway because you can't steer.

Your complaint will be valid when they make the bamboo unicycle.

True, bamboo does burn, but not very easily. You might as well worry about an aluminium frame suffering a thermite reaction. And, since drilling holes weakens bamboo (it encourages splitting), a composite bike would actually be less sturdy than an all-bamboo bike.

Nothing you buy is flammable? So you have no soft furnishings and your clothes are made of copper foil?